Finally, a tablet simple enough for a woman to use </sarcasm>

Do iPads or Nexus 7s scare and confuse you? ePad Femme is here to help!

The ePad Femme: for women everywhere who have no interests except their own bodies and having babies, which is apparently all of them.

At long last, a company has designed a tablet fit for the use of an entire gender that has, thus far, apparently gone unserved. The ePad Femme, designed and distributed by the Eurostar Group, is an eight-inch tablet that comes pre-loaded with apps concerning yoga, grocery shopping, and cooking. Thank the heavens, ladies may never trouble their pretty heads with such difficulties as finding and downloading their own apps ever again.

The tablet was first announced back in October but received a marketing push in February as “the perfect Valentine’s Day gift,” noted one site. The tablet runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, or as a woman might call it, “the Android screensaver.” Eurostar calls the ePad Femme "the first tablet specifically for ladies."

Several sites highlight that the tablet “comes in light pink.” Despite our best efforts, we’ve failed to find an image verifying that the actual body of the tablet is pink, so we assume this is in reference to the home screen wallpaper. Just as well, since what woman is going to figure out how to configure that, am I right? Settings, right? What even are they?

Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, Eurostar associate vice president of marketing Mani Nair said that the tablet comes with the preloaded womanly applications so the user can “just turn it on and log in to cooking recipes or yoga.” He went on to state that the ePad Femme “makes a perfect gadget for a woman who might find difficulties in terms of downloading these applications and it is a quick reference.”

The tablet has a 1.5GHz processor, 16GB of internal storage, and an SD card slot, but how a woman will ever work out either of those last two things are or what to do with them, one can’t be sure. She shouldn’t even need to—that clothing size converter app she was going to download? Already installed. Pregnancy app? Look no further.

Nair maintains that the intent of the ePad Femme tablet was not sexist. He compared it to another tablet the company offers, ePad Gamer, but those gamers are targeted by their interest, not their biological makeup. That seems like a pretty substantial difference.

A second interviewee of the Jerusalem Post, Dee Ann Javier, describes how her boyfriend did indeed give her an ePad Femme for Valentine’s Day. Surprisingly, her story does not begin “I broke up with my boyfriend because.” Instead, Javier notes the tablet’s “portability” and that she likes the color.

But a feminist blogger, Eman Al Nafjan, notes to the Jerusalem Post that women in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where the tablet is sold, are “extremely tech-savvy” and don’t need apps downloaded for them. Women in those countries “spend a lot of time online.” They may work less but graduate from universities at higher rates than men, so they are just as well if not more educated.

We’ve taken down the pinkification of gadgets before, and the sexist marketing and targeting that goes along with them (sexism also goes in the other direction, with the hyper-masculine bent of brands like Motorola’s Droid phones). Not only does the ePad Femme continue this sorry tradition, but it takes it further. The ePad Femme bores into the functionality of the tablet itself, assuming that a women’s interests fit neatly into the stereotypical categories of fitness, weight loss, cooking, shopping, and having children.

The ePad Femme costs only $190, far less than the iPad and about the same as a Nexus 7. Go figure, the device has yet to be a big seller—as of mid-February, Eurostar had sold around 7,000 units. Given the number of affordable, gender-neutral, and yet still user-friendly tablets available, we are unsurprised.

Perhaps we go too far in assuming that these tablets are indeed only suited to a woman’s needs. Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently hit us with the revelation that smartphones are emasculating; maybe a pink tablet with a pregnancy app can do no worse.

But a feminist blogger, Eman Al Nafjan, notes to the Jerusalem Post that women in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where the tablet is sold, are “extremely tech-savvy” and don’t need apps downloaded for them. Women in those countries “spend a lot of time online.”

Not excusing this blatantly sexist advertising and product, but if someone is going to contend that the culture in Saudi Arabia and the UAE is more progressive for women than Israel (where the Jerusalem Post is based), other issues besides the ePad Femme probably should be discussed (voting rights to military service to employment opportunities to free choice of clothing to holding seats in high government positions).

EDIT: I had originally read this as Eman Al Nafjan comparing Saudi women to Israeli women. As others have pointed out, it was just a criticism of the product itself that happened to be published in the J Post. So never mind.

There's a lot of good material here, but the best line is "Surprisingly, her story does not begin 'I broke up with my boyfriend because.'"

Mitlov wrote:

"But a feminist blogger, Eman Al Nafjan, notes to the Jerusalem Post that women in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where the tablet is sold, are “extremely tech-savvy” and don’t need apps downloaded for them. Women in those countries “spend a lot of time online.” "

Not excusing this blatantly sexist advertising and product, but if someone is going to contend that the culture in Saudi Arabia and the UAE is more progressive for women than Israel (where the Jerusalem Post is based), other issues besides the ePad Femme probably should be discussed (voting rights to military service to employment opportunities to free choice of clothing to holding seats in high government positions).

Um, nobody said or implied that "Saudi Arabia and the UAE is more progressive for women than Israel". The blogger was simply explaining the current state of things to reports from the Jerusalem Post.

For over a decade now I've noticed that if you look at the people around you on the train/underground/bus the number of women fiddling with their mobile phone/ereader/tablet far outweighs the men.

A 2006 study in Switzerland found that girls get their first mobile earlier than boys, and that "significantly more women than men have assimilated the mobile phone as a central component of their personal existence".

Girls love their toys. Anyone who thinks that women have some sort of difficulty with mobile devices and need a special pink one must have been living in a cave.

For over a decade now I've noticed that if you look at the people around you on the train/underground/bus the number of women fiddling with their mobile phone/ereader/tablet far outweighs the men.

A 2006 study in Switzerland found that girls get their first mobile earlier than boys, and that "significantly more women than men have assimilated the mobile phone as a central component of their personal existence".

Girls love their toys. Anyone who thinks that women have some sort of difficulty with mobile devices and need a special pink one must have been living in a cave.

(sexism also goes in the other direction, with the hyper-masculine bent of brands like HTC’s Droid phones)

Did you mean the Moto Droid phones? The HTC ones look just like the rest of their Android lineup. Either way, I don't quite see how they'd be considered hyper-masculine. Most of the people I see with Droid-branded phones (outside of the Droid X/2 which is equal) are girls, though that's usually for the keyboards on the Moto Droid n series. If anything, I'd say the stock Android theme is more oriented toward males than anything that's been put out by a third party.

(sexism also goes in the other direction, with the hyper-masculine bent of brands like HTC’s Droid phones)

Did you mean the Moto Droid phones? The HTC ones look just like the rest of their Android lineup. Either way, I don't quite see how they'd be considered hyper-masculine. Most of the people I see with Droid-branded phones (outside of the Droid X/2 which is equal) are girls, though that's usually for the keyboards on the Moto Droid n series. If anything, I'd say the stock Android theme is more oriented toward males than anything that's been put out by a third party.

Yes, sorry about that, I've fixed that reference to be Motorola, not HTC. Thanks for pointing it out!

I've thought about this and actually I think it makes sense when marketed in the Saudi and UAE markets. The preloaded apps aren't for the benefit of the end-user, but for the individual in the family who controls the purse-strings. In a very conservative family, the husband may have sole control over the finances and may say "why would I want to get my wife or daughter an iPad and have American culture force-fed into my home?" Leaving his wife or his daughter without any alternative way to get access to Twitter, Facebook, teh interwebz, etc.

On the other hand, something like this with a bunch of very ultra-conservative apps preloaded, even ultra-conservative husbands would be likely to see this as "appropriate" for their wives or daughters. And while it DOES have all that ultra-traditional stuff preloaded, it doesn't appear to be locked down to only be able to access this stuff. So the recipient can still use this to connect to Twitter, Facebook, teh interwebz, etc.

I hate to break it to you, Casey, but flip through some of the magazines at the grocery checkout, or TiVo some daytime shows, marketers pander to women because enough women will part with their hard earned dollars.

Of course, they pander to men, too; for a laugh, next time you're in GNC or the like, read some of the labels on strength training supplements.

I can't help but see (possibly mistakenly, I'll admit) some small amount of irony in articles like these. It's as if the author thinks that the poor women shopping for tablets are too stupid or naive to figure out for themselves whether or not they should be offended by crass marketing.

If there isn't a market for it, it will go away. If there is a market, is it really the marketers that should be solely criticized?

At long last, a company has designed a tablet fit for the use of an entire gender

Why do you think that this product is aimed at, and is a commentary on, an entire gender instead of a marketing ploy aimed at a sub-demographic? Not every 'lady'-focused product and marketing ploy is a commentary on gender roles and how you should fit into them. You're reading so far between the lines that this piece sounds like it belongs on Jezebel (i.e. click-bait).

When Lego didn't have products for girls, parents complained that girls are discriminated.

Then Lego spent lots of money developing Lego sets for girls (that turned out to be a huge success), then the feminists complain that this is discrimination, and there should only be gender neutral sets.

I thnk they've made an glaring omission in their design. I can't a any maps app for the stereotypical nag husband while driving event. I think females should return their units until this is fixed. And for those of you that might say, install the map app, well duh, their women.

I think there's a huge cunk of sexism you can still squeeze out of it yet

Pink is the ultimate manly colour. Behold the majesty of the British toffs in their hunting pinks as they prepare to savage some vermin and drag it home for their next meal. You know they only hunt fox cos, son, we bin hunted out all the wild bear and stags and boar from these London parts.